I am the owner of a 2005 LS430. I purchased this used car about 3 years ago and recently had a strut fail. The car has 130k miles, so it's not a big surprise. But I do have one question.... How do I know if my car has air suspension?? I am planning to take it to a mechanic that does good, honest work but he wanted to know if I owned the model with air suspension before quoting the estimate. It's a very base model LS430. No navigation, non-sport wheels. Since it's not loaded, I am leaning toward thinking it does not, but how can one tell??

 

I am pretty sure only the UL package optioned cars have air suspension. The UL package was the most deluxe option package available on the LS430.

If you have a base non-Nav model it has standard metal springs and shocks.

 

JW is correct. In 04-06, the air suspension was only available on the UL trim level. If you don't have nav, you have a premium (cooled front seats) or base (only heated front seats). You can verify the presence of air suspension by looking at the switches on the center stack behind the shifter. If you don't have a switch to set the suspension in sport mode (I believe it has a picture of a shock absorber on it), you don't have air suspension.

 

air was actually an option on non UL cars and so far I only know of 1 in existance. junjdm or his buddy i forget which.

 

I think it was a stand-alone option on 01 and maybe 02 & 03 LS430s.

 

yeah his was an 01-03 LS430 and i have seen the listed options on a lexus ls430 and saw the air susp option myself (although i can't remember if it was an 01-03 or 04-06) and the guy who had the air susp was either junjdm or gato from CL.